Music From Standing Waves (19 page)

“I’ll think about it.”

Jess had resigned herself to moping on the
couch after her super-camp, piccolo-playing boyfriend had
unexpectedly come out of the closet. I whole-heartedly took part in
the tear-fest, hiring
Dumbo, Beaches
and
The Lion
King
from the video shop.

Jess wailed into a tissue. “I can’t believe
Mufasa is dead… And I can’t believe Cecil is gay!”

I hugged her. “None of us saw it coming. I’m
sure it wasn’t you that turned him.”

“Oh my God!” cried Jess. “I didn’t even think
of it like that! What if I turned him, Abby? What if I turned him?”
She sobbed again, before joining in a tearful chorus of
Hakuna
Matata.

My phone beeped loudly as a message lit up
the screen. I patted Jess’s knee. “Come on, we’re going to
Julian’s.”

After the party, Friday nights at Julian’s
were becoming a ritual. Every week we would jump on the train
carrying too much alcohol and turn into drunken music geeks on the
lounge floor. Matt and Roman alternated between refined
Conservatorium students (“I love the fourth movement of Haydn’s
London Symphony
”) and twenty year old boys (“He so got laid
the night before he wrote it”) while Julian professed his undying
love for us all.

“You guys are the greatest,” he would
announce every Friday. “You should move in.”

Even after a cask of cheap wine, everyone
knew it was a desperate attempt to find a housemate before his
lease ran out and not a gesture of friendship.

Jess walked mournfully into the lounge. Roman
was wrestling with Brown Dog while Julian handed out random
dickhead points.

“Cecil is gay,” Jess announced.

Roman’s eyes lit up. “I knew it!”

“Surprise, surprise,” called Clara, pushing a
frozen pizza into the oven.

“Ten points to Jess,” said Julian.

The dog charged out of the lounge and
head-butted its way through the back door. I joined Clara in the
kitchen. Red plastic dishes were piled into the sink, caked with
old spaghetti. It smelled of pasta sauce, beer and bloodhound.

“Matt asked me to play in his new music
ensemble,” I said.

“Oh that,” Clara snorted. “What are they
called? Waving or something?”

“Standing Waves.”

“Whatever. It’s a total wank. Matt’s already
roped Julian into playing electric bass of all things. He can
hardly even play the electric bass. Don’t know what they do in
their rehearsals. They’ve only had two and he’s come home both
times completely wasted. Here.” She tossed me a bag of salad mix.
“I’m tying to get Julian to eat some vegetables. Do something
useful and put this in a bowl.”

I emptied the salad onto a plate and waded
through the fridge in search of the mayonnaise. “You don’t think I
should play in Matt’s band?”

“No way!” Clara spluttered. “Not unless you
want to make a complete idiot of yourself.” She crossed her arms.
“What’s the deal with you and Matt anyway? Are you, like,
together?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think we are.”

Clara tutted. “Are you sure he’s for real?
Because Julian thinks he’s only in it to see how long it takes to
get you into bed.”

“That’s crap,” I mumbled, my voice coming out
softer than I had intended. “Matt already said he won’t rush
me.”

“Well isn’t he a gentleman...” Clara glanced
at the use-by date on the mayonnaise and tossed it in the bin. “You
can’t seriously be thinking about this Waving thing though. Do you
want to play the pub scene like some washed-up hack?”

“Matt doesn’t want us to play the pub scene,”
I said. “He’s going to advertise at the Con. And get some grants.
And make albums.”

Clara rolled her eyes. “And the quartet?”

“I’m still going to play in the quartet. I
can do both.”

“Well what about your reputation?”

“My reputation?”

“Yeah. You start getting involved in all that
freaky stuff and your name as a serious performer will be
shot.”

“Really?” I opened the oven door to check the
pizza. Clara slammed it shut.

“It’s not going to cook if you let all the
heat out.”

I folded my arms. “So who’s going to care if
I play in Matt’s band?”

“God you’re naive sometimes, Abby,” Clara
snorted. “The music industry is all about who you know, not what
you know. You get a name for yourself as a new music guinea pig and
that’s what you’ll be stuck as. If you want to get on stage in the
concert hall, you have to be seen playing the right music.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That sounds a bit
hard to believe.”

Clara planted one hand on her hip. “Look,
precious. No offence, but I seriously doubt you could have learned
much about the music industry in that pokey little town of yours.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I just think you should trust
me.”

“Whatever,” I said.

I was scratching through a Corelli sonata in
a desperate attempt to find the last piece for my mid-year recital.
My phone vibrated on my dressing table.

“You have to come to Julian’s,” Clara
babbled. “I lost the dog.”

I couldn’t stifle a laugh. “What?”

“Julian’s dog. He got out and ran away. You
have to come help me find him. Jules is going to freak when he gets
home.”

“Are you serious? Cos I still really need to
find another piece…”

“Would I joke about something like this?”
Clara demanded. I put down my bow, deciding Clara rarely joked
about anything at all.

When I arrived at Julian’s, she was sitting
on the front step, bouncing her heels anxiously.

“What happened?” I laughed.

“I didn’t shut the front door properly,” she
mumbled. “I was in the lounge trying to do my history assignment
and the stupid animal just wandered out. And then he must have
seen, like, a cat or something because when I went out to get him
he’d run off down the street. I couldn’t catch him.” She narrowed
her eyes. “And stop laughing, Abby. It’s really not funny. Jules is
going to kill me.”

“Okay,” I smiled. “Let’s go look. He can’t
have gone too far.”

Armed with Brown Dog’s leash and a handful of
meaty chews, we trudged down the footpath. Clouds hung low in the
sky. The late afternoon light was pale and grey.

“Brown Dog!” called Clara. “Where are you,
Brown Dog?” She huffed. “God, I feel like an idiot.” We passed the
strip of shops and station at the bottom of the hill. A group of
school kids came barrelling out of the underpass.

“Maybe we should ask someone if they’ve seen
him,” I suggested.

“No way. That’s so embarrassing. Let’s just
keep walking.” Clara zipped her jacket. We turned down a
residential street and she gave a token whistle for the dog. “So
Julian’s at Matt’s,” she said. “Rehearsing their
nails-on-a-blackboard music.”

I nodded.

“Glad you’re not there?”

I shrugged. “I could think of worse places to
be. Here, for example.”

Clara shot me a withering look.

“Matt says they’re sounding really good,” I
told her.

“Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he.”

“I’m thinking about playing,” I admitted.

Clara raised her eyebrows. “Well, when you’re
doing gigs for beer and waitressing for a living, don’t say I
didn’t warn you.”

We walked in silence for another block and
looped around to the back of the football ground. Cold wind rustled
the gum trees.

Clara fiddled with the clip on the dog leash.
“Don’t laugh,” she said. “But I used to want to be a vet.”

I smiled crookedly. “You know that involves a
lot of gross things, Clar. The insides of animals, for
example.”

“Yeah I know. Disgusting, right? But I took
biology at school and everything.”

“Really?” She had begun to walk faster and I
had to jog to keep up. “So why did you change your mind?”

She shrugged. “You know. My dad said he
didn’t pay for fifteen years of violin lessons so I could learn to
stick a thermometer up a dog’s rear end.” The clicking of her heels
disappeared as we stepped onto the wet grass of the oval. “Dad says
he wishes I was learning from John Glass. I’ve told him a million
times that my teacher is fine, but he keeps telling me to ask John
if he has any free places.” She looked at me sideways, as though
waiting for me to speak.

I said nothing.

“It’s kind of ironic, don’t you think,” said
Clara. “That you have John, but your parents don’t want to know
about it?”

I sucked in my breath and folded my arms.
Wished I were at home hunting for my last recital piece. “Hey
wait.” I pointed to an enormous dog sniffing around the goal posts.
“Isn’t that him?”

“I don’t know. Could be.”

I squinted. “It is a brown dog.”

Clara tottered across the grass in her heeled
boots. “Brown Dog!” she called, slapping her thighs. “Here, Brown
Dog!”

The dog ignored her and lifted its leg
against the point post. She stumbled towards him and he loped off
in the opposite direction.

Clara sighed. “Christ. Look what my life has
come to.” She handed me the lead. “Can you help already?”

“How?”

“I don’t know. You’re from the country. Don’t
you know how to, like, rope a steer or something?”

I handed her a meaty chew. “Give him
this.”

She screwed up her nose and held it in her
outstretched arm. Whistled shrilly. The dog turned and galloped
towards her. He clamped his slobbery jaws over the chew.

Clara shrieked and wiped her palm on the
grass.

“You know Clar,” I said, clipping on the
leash. “I’m really glad your dad made you go to the Con. You would
have made a terrible vet.”

When we got back to the house, Jess and Roman
had arrived for the Friday night piss-up. They were sitting on the
back step giggling, while Roman rolled a joint from the stash in
Julian’s cutlery drawer.

“How did you guys get in?” Clara
demanded.

Roman flicked his lighter. “Front door was
open.”

Jess lay back on her elbows. “Where have you
two been?”

“Walking the dog,” said Clara. “Obviously.”
She clicked off Brown Dog’s leash and snatched the joint from
Roman’s hand. Inhaled edgily before passing it to Jess. She glanced
sideways at us. “Don’t tell anyone I just did that.”

Matt and Julian returned from their rehearsal
two hours later. We had finished the decent wine and the okay wine
and were cracking open the two dollar
I’m-so-pissed-everything-tastes-good cask.

Matt sat behind me on the floor and squeezed
his arms around my waist. “We missed you at rehearsal today,” he
said, kissing my neck.

I filled up my plastic wine glass. “Clara
lost the dog,” I announced loudly.

“What?” Julian looked up from the fridge.

Clara glared at me. “Nothing. The dog’s fine,
alright, he’s fine. He’s in the back yard where you left him.” She
took a gulp of wine. “You’re such a fucking big mouth, Abby.
Jesus.”

Roman’s shiny white body ran naked past the
window to hysterical shrieks from Jess. He stumbled back inside,
dripping from the sprinkler, and launched into a particularly
grating rendition of
All That Jazz.
Jess threw him a
towel.

“Shut up, man,” laughed Julian. “And go put
some fucking clothes on.” He opened his beer. “Looks like me and
Matt have got some serious catching up to do. Who’s up for a beer
snorkel race?”

Matt laughed. He put his lips to my ear. I
shivered.

“Race me. As a thank you present.”

“Thank you for what?”

He reached into his bag and handed me a thin,
spiral bound folder.

“I wrote you a piece to play for your
recital. Perform it for me and it’s yours.”

And I obediently downed three beers in sixty
seconds, suddenly certain that Matt was the only thing I had ever
wanted.

I woke up on the floor of the study, my body
aching and my mouth dry. I was sprawled over Matt’s chest; a thin
blue blanket tossed over our naked bodies. Bright light streamed
through the half-open Venetians. I could remember Matt’s drunken
voice.

“I’m sick of waiting, Abby…”

I fumbled for my clothes and climbed off the
floor. I stumbled into Matt’s waist but he didn’t move. I closed my
eyes for a second then crept out of the room.

Jess was sitting on the back step, drinking a
glass of water and rubbing the dog’s belly. I sat beside her. “I
slept with Matt.”

“No shit,” said Jess. “The rest of us could
hear you loud and clear.”

“Oh my God…” I buried my pounding forehead in
my hands and took a deep breath. “Oh my God…”

Jess put her glass down on the concrete. “You
don’t remember?”

I shook my head. “Hardly…”

“Oh honey…” She rubbed my shoulder. “I guess
you were pretty wasted last night. It was your first time?”

I nodded. “I didn’t want it to be like this.
Not after what happened with Justin…” I sat up. “I’m going to be
sick.” I rushed into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. The
swirls on the wet, grey lino danced in front of my eyes. I’d never
felt so awful in all my life. I wanted to die. At least then I’d
never have to make eye contact with any of my uni friends again.
Jess pushed open the door and knelt beside me. She handed me a
glass of water. I gulped it down, then puked it straight back up
again.

Jess stroked my hair. “You have to be
careful, honey. Take it easy.” She hugged me. “It’s okay. At least
it was with a guy you really care about.”

“I’m never drinking again,” I groaned. “I
can’t believe I got that drunk.”

Jess rubbed my back. “Do you want to go
home?”

I nodded.

“Okay.” She kissed the side of my head. “I’ll
go get my keys.”

I soaked in the bath for an hour that night.
Jess had given me some lavender oil and decorated the bathroom with
candles. I alternated between states of relaxation, misery and
plain humiliation.